Krzysztof Szlifirski

Director and sound engineer, acoustician and pedagogue. Co-founder of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio in Warsaw. Between 1958 and 1985 he was the deputy director of PRES, and from 1998 to 2004 he held the position of its director. Born on 13th February 1934 in Warsaw.

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Krzysztof Szlifirski, photo: promotional materials UMFC

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He graduated with a degree in electronics from the Warsaw University of Technology. From 1957 to 1958, he studied film studies at the National Institute of Art in Warsaw. He is one of the co-founders of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio in Warsaw, where he worked from 1958 (PRES was established in November 1957). He was involved in sound technology and production. Between 1998 and 2004, until the closing of the institution, he was the director of the Experimental Studio.

In the Polish Radio Experimental Studio

Szlifirski learned about the studio thanks to Andrzej Markowski, whom he met during his internship at the Documentary Film Studio. At the time, Markowski was working on music for the film Story of One Fighter (1958, dir. Hubert Drapella) and was looking for someone to help him realise the electronic music for one of the scenes. (This was the 'rescue buoy' scene – Szlifirski’s first experience with film music, though he is not mentioned in the credits).

Szlifirski had already heard about electronic music – he drew his knowledge from the book Klangstruktur der Musik (Sound Structures of Music) by Fritz Winckel, which he found on a shelf in an Empik bookstore. It was a collection of articles devoted to the technology and aesthetics of electronic and concrete music – the knowledge that Szlifirski possessed was truly unique in Poland at the time and very valuable to Józef Patkowski, the founder of PRES. Szlifirski quickly befriended Patkowski. Patkowski’s son recounted:

We used to go canoeing together with the Szlifirski family. Me with my sister and father in one canoe, and Krzysztof with his wife in the other. He taught me how to fish, I also went skiing with him on Hala Gąsienicowa. He was Father’s best friend.

Agnieszka Pindera, 'Patkowski: Ambasador Muzyki z Marsa', Warsaw – Łódź, 2019

Józef Patkowski ran the Experimental Studio together with Krzysztof Szlifirski. 'Of course, with my knowledge, I dealt more with technology, whilst learning certain things from Patkowski. And vice versa, he in turn learned certain technological matters from me,' says Szlifirski.

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Józef Patkowski, Warsaw, September 1970, Warszawska Jesień Festival, photo: Slawek Biegański / FORUM

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The beginnings of PRES were a time of breakneck solutions. The equipment used in the studio was taken from other radio departments; employees also utilised laboratory equipment, which had to be adapted to use as musical instruments. The most important pieces of equipment at the disposal of the pioneers of electronic music in Poland were high-class Telefunken tape recorders. According to Krzysztof Szlifirski, PRES became a decently equipped electronic music studio in the mid-1960s. Many of the instruments used at the studio were original inventions of its employees. Szlifirski constructed many of them himself, others he commissioned from hired technicians and engineers. Sometimes it was possible to acquire western equipment. One such rare event that allowed foreign purchases was the Poznań International Fair – it was more profitable for the exhibitors to sell the equipment at a discounted price than to pay for the return transport.

As a producer, he cooperated with Krzysztof Penderecki, Włodzimierz Kotoński, Andrzej Dobrowolski, Bohdan Mazurek, François-Bernard Mâche and other composers from the Polish Radio Experimental Studio. Together with Józef Patkowski, he produced and composed music for many theatre performances and films.

Krzysztof Szlifirski says that his most memorable productions were made in the first period of the studio’s activity. He recalls with particular interest the creation of the music for the East German sci-fi film Silent Star (1959), directed by Kurt Maetzig. Amongst other things, his task was to record sounds that would simulate intelligent magma and a space rocket launch. As he recounts:

Military Technical Academy, everything strictly confidential. We were admitted to the fuel laboratories. We had breakers with oils of various densities prepared on tables, with tubes. I don’t remember who was blowing into these tubes… probably Eugeniusz Rudnik. I recorded all this on a portable tape recorder which two people had to carry. The second set of recordings was to come from the wind tunnel that was installed at the MTA. […] It was about the sounds of a rocket taking off, the moment when the turbines start. I had a microphone in my hand and what to do? There were no wind shields then, so in an act of desperation I took the microphone and put it under my jacket. It recorded properly.

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Still from 'The Silent Star' directed by Maetzig Kurt, 1960, picturing Ignacy Machowski and Oldrich Lukes., photo: Studio Filmowe OKO/Filmoteka Narodowa/www.fototeka.fn.org.pl

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Kadr z filmu "Milcząca gwiazda" reżyseria: Maetzig Kurt, 1960. Na zdjęciu: Ignacy Machowski i Oldrich Lukes., fot. Studio Filmowe OKO/Filmoteka Narodowa/www.fototeka.fn.org.pl

Pedagogical activities

For many years, PRES was the only institution in Poland where electronic and electroacoustic music could be performed. The studio’s employees were the only specialists in this field, Patkowski and Szlifirski having been employed at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw in 1962. (The school changed its name to the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in 1979, and in 2008 it was transformed into the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music).

He was Dean of the Faculty of Sound Direction in the years 1981-1985, 1990-1996 and 1999-2004. He also lectured at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Warsaw (1977-1978), the Faculty of Radio and Television at the University of Silesia (1978-1981) and Southwest Texas State University (1998). He is the co-creator of the ‘solfeggio tone’ – an authorial teaching programme aimed at developing tonal sensitivity. In the film Szlif, directed by Andrzej Artymowicz, he said:

My family always stressed that I had an inclination for teaching; I always had a tendency to explain everything – to children, later, as it turned out, to students.

He is the author of Pro-Audio: An English-Polish Dictionary of Sound Recording Terminology (Warsaw, 1966).

Krzysztof Szlifirski has been awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Golden Cross of Merit. He received the Award of the Minister of Culture and Art three times for his teaching and artistic activity.

Filmography:

Art of Love (1989), dir. by Jacek Bromski – music
People (1969), dir. by Krzysztof Raynoch – music (together with Józef Patkowski)
The Time of Transformation (1968), dir. by Andrzej Piekutowski – music (together with Józef Patkowski)
Sky Without Sun (1966), dir. by Jan Rybkowski – sound composition (together with Józef Patkowski)
Light and Sound (1965), dir. by Maria Kwiatkowska – music (together with Józef Patkowski)
Way of Being (1965), dir. by Jan Rybkowski – sound composition (together with Józef Patkowski)
The Duel (1965), dir. Janusz Majewski – music (together with Józef Patkowski)
Conversation (1964), dir. by Maria Kwiatkowska – music (together with Józef Patkowski)
Over the Tatra Mountains (1963), dir. by Jerzy Kaden – music (together with Józef Patkowski)
Auschwitz Station (1960), dir. by Maria Kwiatkowska – music (together with Józef Patkowski)
Silent Star (1959), dir. by Kurt Maetzig – production of recordings, electronic music

Sources: Szlif (2019), directed by Andrzej Artymowicz, Agnieszka Pindera, Patkowski. Ambasador Muzyki z Marsa (Warsaw – Łódź, 2019), Ultra Sounds. The Sonic Art. Of Polish Radio Experimental Studio edited by David Crowley (Karlsruhe 2018), Studio Eksperyment Leksykon. Zbiór Tekstów (Warsaw, 2012).

Originally written in Polish by Filip Lech, translated into English by P. Grabowski, December 2021

Krzysztof Szlifirski

The Polish Radio Experimental Studio

PRES

polish electronic music